BT is deploying Nokia’s 7750 Service Router (SR)-14s platform to boost backbone network capacity.
Traffic across BT’s core network is growing upwards of 40 percent year on year, driven by video and gaming over high speed fixed and mobile broadband.
BT-owned EE has demonstrated its 5G capability in London and will roll out to the busiest parts of 16 UK cities in 2019.
Openreach is currently deploying FTTP in 14 locations under its Fibre First program and has recently announced a further 11 locations, bringing the total to 25.
Openreach has passed 1.7 million premises with Gfast and 900,000 with FTTP – covering over 2.6 million premises.
BT reported capital expenditure (Capex) of £2.81 billion in nine months to 31 December 2018 — primarily due to increased investment in FTTP.
BT has more than 11,700 people in Technology team. Most of BT’s teams are based at Global Development Centres in Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, London and Adastral Park in Suffolk; as well as Hatfield, Sheffield, Walsall and Oswestry.
Howard Watson, BT Group CTIO, said: “BT’s FTTP footprint is growing on a daily basis, and we are launching 5G this year in the busiest parts of 16 of the UK’s busiest cities. We have to stay ahead of the massive traffic growth that this will bring.”
Sri Reddy, co-president of IP/Optical Networks at Nokia, said: “Nokia’s 7750 SR-s platform, based on our FP4 silicon, will offer BT’s network the enhanced capabilities and automation needed to address continuously mounting capacity demands as it moves toward 5G.”
BT will be among the first mobile operators in the world to introduce the Nokia 7750 SR-s in the backbone network, augmenting the existing Nokia 7750 SR & 7950 XRS based network, managed by the Network Services Platform (NSP).
Nokia 7750 SR-s — powered by the world’s first multi-terabit network processor silicon (FP4) — delivers the highest 100GE density available on the market among high-performance IP routers.
FP4 silicon innovation drives the industry’s first platform capable of delivering terabit IP flows across the expanding backbone and peering points.
Baburajan K
